Re: esport trying to be real sport

@Charles Manning: Defending your point slightly, given the downvotes, this is exactly what the IeSF said to justify the gender-specific competitions: it makes them seem like a more legitimate sporting federation.

It's an interesting point, but a terrible defence; they're essentially saying "well, the others discriminate (rightly or wrongly), so we should too", without looking at whether they need to.

The reality is, though, why do they have different games for different genders? That would be like men competing in 100m sprint, while women get hopscotch.

Arguably, they could run a year where women can compete separately on the same games to "prove" (in my hypothesis) that there's no innate reason that a combined games won't work - ignoring their hypothesis that women are more likely to compete if they know they'll compete against other women.

I'm guessing that their view is that once they have a few world female champions, it may encourage other women to try their luck...

Re: Looks more like...

That's an interesting point: while I agree that a metre is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second, arguably a metre as it exists at this point in time is more important than the accuracy of that calculation, in terms of the impact to society as a whole. i.e., if we (hypothetically) did discover that the speed of light is slightly different (as John suggested), wouldn't it make more sense to change that formula to keep the metre the same, rather than having to adjust all of our measurements?

Re: "True virtual reality is 'a decade or two' away"

Re: "True virtual reality is 'a decade or two' away"

I don't see this as an either-or situation; those working on ad-slinging are not the same people working on useful technology.

Also, most of the tech you mentioned is an important part of future VR solutions - curved TVs are a by-product of breakthroughs in thinner, flexible displays, 8k is purely a push for higher ppi in a cheaper manufacturing process, and (active) 3D is just a higher framerate.

Proprietary means "we think we're more clever than the uncounted number of people that have reviewed the open source implementations for years". So they're probably relying on the obscurity of their implementation... which is ridiculous.

Re: Boring Name

Re: Not Surprised - The console is dead.

"PS4/XBone, put the power in, connect it to TV, power up, pray it isn't bricked, activate online, wait for mandatory updates, pray it isn't bricked, insert game disc, wait for game to install, wait for mandatory game updates, play game."

Re: ..a multimillionaire already ..... can afford to walk away

"If you want to see his "moral compass" at work, try raising some money on Kickstarter to make a Minecraft Movie. He won't even sue you. He just calls some Silicon Valley buddies, and you just disappear from the Internet."

Maybe not an unbiased report, but Notch's explanation is that his lawyers (interestingly, without his input, apparently) said they could carry on if they removed the word "Minecraft", but they voluntarily shut themselves down.

He seems a pretty genuine/open person, from the interactions I've seen.

Re: Crystal cove @ Ian Yates

With a new lens system, this might work, but with the Rift you're essentially looking through a microscope at a screen*, so you only get a limited area of focus. How limited, I haven't checked, but I don't think that full 160o(?) vision is possible with the current design.

I tried the Glyph recently. Their approach to the "screen" was to use a micro-mirror array to project the image on to your retina. It worked really well (crystal clear HD image), but the actual view array was much smaller (well under half the Rift) and looked like it was being seen through a very long tunnel.

I think that this tech, projecting from more than just straight in front, is a good contender for full viewing angle.

Re: Crystal cove

Over 1080p is a must, which they hinted at on the forums some time ago.

I think (as do a lot of Rift users) consumer release 1 will be 1440p and a future version at 4k (2160p).

The current 1280x800 version works fine, but really isn't good at anything at a distance (racing games, HL2, etc.).

There's a good approximation of what the resolutions means in terms of screendoor effect here: http://vr.mkeblx.net/oculus-sim/

For me, the next biggest leap will be adding peripheral vision. I love playing on the Rift, but it does feel a bit like viewing a world through a pair of binoculars. The most immersive games are those where the character is intended to be wearing some kind of head-gear (space walks, HL2, etc.), as you feel a part of what they're experiencing.

Re: compatibility

My experience is that the limits they state are because the larger cards didn't exist to test at the time of release, so they don't want to be held accountable for mis-sold features if the newer cards fail.

Re: Ponzi scheme tactics

Re: See the video for more information.

Except that it requires your computer to (a) have speakers and (b) have them turned on. Can't watch the video, so I can't tell if the app is then authenticating over the 'net or responding with a sound; hopefully the former or you'd need a microphone on the computer.

It's an interesting tech, but I don't see how it's better (meaning more secure rather than cooler) than using a QR Code and holding the phone up to the screen.

Re: If...

"I'd be interested to hear exactly where you get the "most companies" statistic from"

Poor wording on my part. I meant more that most companies still on XP are that way because they see no reason to upgrade.

That said, I have personally worked at 4 large companies over the last year, all of which are completely or mostly on XP with varying plans of migration (and all of those to 7). The only reason behind the upgrade plans at these is support; they're not interested in any of new features (maybe some of the admin tools).

Re: If...

Isn't the biggest issue that they keep making changes that no one wants? Most companies still have XP because it does what they want and little extra.

Who is the target audience for Vista / 7 / 8 - they all feel far more consumer focused than business. As a gamer, I actually rate 8 quite highly, but I can't see much in it worth recommending to clients.

Most of the City businesses I know are only now starting the XP to 7 migration, having spent all this time proving hardware and software compatibility.

That second point is the most important: software. Most companies will only upgrade due to security necessity, and even then binary compatibility is priority #1. If they could run their obscure/bespoke 32-bit (because most still are) Windows applications on any other operating system, most would consider it.

Re: Haven't you seen Fringe ?

"Yeh, but don't the major airports already sniff and scan for such explosives? I know that I've been through puffer/sniffer machines, the kind that search for airborne evidence of the minutest giveaway sizing."

I can't say I've ever looked in to it, but I've always kind of assumed that these things are a bit of a hoax; designed more as a scary deterrence than actually as functional as they claim. Similar to how sniffer dogs actually have a very poor success rate (very high false-positive rate) but are still used in most airports.

Can't speak for NA universities, but during my CS course in the UK we were specifically encouraged to come up with more interesting names, especially for version releases. It's a bit of fun in an otherwise cold environment.

I still encourage interesting names (especially backronyms) in my professional life, and it does add a small amount of humour to planning meetings that the team can enjoy together. Just the other day we were discussing when "the new OWL will be ready", rather than "version 2 of Monitoring Tool".

True, it might be more appropriate as an internal thing, but it's hard to argue that names such as Yahoo, Flickr, Google, Git, Ubuntu, etc., are descriptive of their services and unrecognisable by the general masses.

@ David Cantrell

Just wanted to add that I agree with you on version naming. I normally espouse a more Ubuntu/Android-esque style of each major version starting with the next letter in the alphabet. No one can be confused if Mozart or Picasso is more recent.

Re: The guy is loaded, load-ed!!

"Because a value in Bitcoins means nothing to most of us"

But, given the volatility of the cyptocurrency, it's almost certainly wrong by the time of publishing. Not to mention that you're almost certainly never going to be able to convert that many Bitcoin in to real cash.

Re: Slightly off topic...

It's currently got a large sheet covering the offending (albeit not like the Qatari stadium) side.

Amusingly, the developers' defended themselves with (not verbatim): "this is a temporary problem as the sun will soon be at an angle that doesn't cause this problem"... somehow forgetting what seasons are...

But, as the other poster said, apparently they're going to coat the glass in something less reflective.

To be honest, I've never really understood what they mean by "import" and "export" in these things, apart from physical crypto gear. Digital "property" has blurred the lines of when something is entering or leaving your borders.

Plus, you can't control concepts, no matter how egotisitcal a government is. Cryptographic tech is just the implementation of a mathematical concept, which is easily distributable.

Re: Not expensive at all for what you get!

I've had it for two weeks now, and *could* be happier.

It's the best (of 5) Android handset I've owner, and I even like what LG have done in terms of overlay, having been a Cyanogenmod user before, but they've made one massive fail: The cheapness of the screen lens.

Mine accidentally slid face down across a wooden floor, and immediately had scratches along two edges of the screen; something I haven't seen since Gorilla Glass become standard in other phones. I immediately bought the "smart" case, which is excellent.

Then, a few days ago, I dropped it from my hand (~1m) and the glass shattered, damaging the digitizer.

I've sent it off for repair, but I really feel that they've skimped on the lens in order to make it that little bit thinner.

Re: It ain't gonna work in the UK...

Courier 1 "tried" twice, without leaving a card, so the first I knew that they had failed was when Amazon emailed me to say that the parcel had been returned; full refund.

Courier 2 did deliver the parcel. Unfortunately, they delivered it 2.5 miles away to a completely different address. But it was signed for, so that's okay. They couldn't even tell me why it was delivered somewhere else, or even the full address of where it was delivered, just the signatory name and postcode. They expected me to figure out where it was, deciding that the driver had done it for the best of reasons.

On the plus side, Amazon's customer service is excellent, so they sent out a replacement without fuss and I'm now waiting for that to arrive, via Courier 3.

Unfortunately for some, none of this can be blamed on the Royal Mail float.

Re: Loving it for all it's flaws

The connection required thing was definitely true of 3, and I'm pretty sure of 2. It's the reason I won't buy 4 until they remove it.

For no apparent reason on 3 (and Arkham City and Arkham Origins), I've occasionally been informed that I've lost connection to their servers and lose all progress beyond the last checkpoint, which can sometimes be a long time ago or just before a difficult fight, etc.

For Arkham City (with the dreaded Windows Live integration), it actually completely corrupted my save, so I stopped playing.

Buying the game and getting a cracked copy is definitely easier than living with their failed attempts at DRM.